


Marigold

by orphan_account



Category: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Genre: Dorothy Dunnett, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 11:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14914973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Prompt for a non-AU: what if Francis sat down and actually *talked* with *anyone* instead of being a giant ball of emotional repression?





	Marigold

It isn’t Will Scott’s fault.

He’s a brave man and a strong one and if Lymond makes him go dizzy at the knees, well, he’s strong enough to keep quiet about it. 

There’s a hundred mercenaries who know what’s up between him and Lymond and half Scotland has guessed. Doesn’t mean it needs talking about.

It just happens. It keeps on happening. After the fight, after the ride, after the day’s adventure, Lymond the alleycat and never-talker-in-prose looks for him and finds him.

Will Scott always smiles at him then, but it’s a strong, brave kind of smile. A fighting kind of smile and so what if his heart skips a beat because what will happen in the dark between them will make the fight and the ride and the whole damn adventure seem like a game full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It keeps on happening and Will keeps enough hold of his senses not to talk. Lymond talks, but Lymond’s different. Lymond would talk on the rack and if he gets to heaven he’ll talk St Peter out of the keys. 

By daylight it’s safe again. Most days Lymond’s gone by the time Will’s awake. If he’s not actually gone he’s up and dressed, crackingly neat as ever, while Will’s clothes lie tangled in a corner and covered in mud.

Lymond acts, then, like he’s never been naked in his life, like he was born in velvet and silk and the outfit had grown with him, like the bite marks on Will’s skin are nothing to do with him, like he’s never ever lost control.

It’s safe to talk then. They talk of swords and daggers, of fire and plans. The stuff men talk about. Brave, strong men.

Will’s a brave man and a strong one. He can face down Kerrs by the dozen, cut the head off one man and stab another with the same stroke. 

Today’s different. He wakes up and light’s filled the room but Lymond’s still there, asleep with his head on Will’s shoulder and his silver hair shining, a living creature lying in Will’s arms, mortal, guilty, entirely beautiful and incidentally entirely naked.

Saints above and devils below, that is more than a man can bear. 

It’s then that he kisses Lymond and says ‘you shine like the sun’.

Lymond’s eyes open, he’s awake quick as a cat. He smiles and Will braces himself for the retching minutes of flaying, for the sharp practiced tongue cutting into his sentimental weakness, his Agnes Herries farradiddle. 

It doesn’t happen.

Lymond smiles again and says in a lazy, happy voice ‘The Marigold that goes to bed with the sun and with it rises weeping’

That, Will thinks, is not fair. He isn’t weeping. Brave, strong men don’t weep.

Lymond is still smiling. He takes Will’s hand in his own, his beautiful hands that have done things Will can’t spell. 

‘Make-believe Marigold’, he says, ‘it’s all we know of heaven and all we need of hell. The world’s real enough. We’ll kill and get praise for it, make our trade from war and our fame on fire and death. There’s never be time speak of love. Make believe a while. Come be with me and be my love and we shall all the pleasures prove.’

‘I’m not in love with you’ Will blurts out and as he says it, as the second ill-advised, vulnerable sentence sounds in his ears, he’s again waiting for Lymond to pounce.

‘No, thank God’, Lymond says, ‘just a sickly form of hero-worship. It’s the only kind of emotion I inspire’.

‘Not sickly either’ Will mutters. He’s not. He’s strong and brave, not to mention that hard riding and hard fighting has honed him down until he’d fuck himself if that were practical. If there were two of him. Not twins, just, two of him. By magic. 

‘No, Lymond says. ‘Not sickly, but as close to love as we’ll get today. Come kiss me sweet and twenty, youth’s a stuff will not endure’.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to @invite-me-to-your-memories for the prompt and to @gawain-in-green for the fest


End file.
